Recommendation on buying or fixing Water Heater

titi3000February 6, 2011

I have posted ealier to ask for help about Water Heater does not working. The water pipe was broken due to frozen, after the Water Heater stopped working.I called the repairman(the one to fixed the broken pipe)come to look at my Water Heater. After checking my Water Heater, he said that the "Gas Burner Control" has stopped working, if replacing he wil charge $200(included parts i guess) but he recommended me changed the whole Water Heater because it's old and it will broke soon(I looked at the Water heater and see that it's 8 year-old and out of warranty, warranty is only 6 years) and the total cost is about $800. Please give me some advices which one i'm going to choose. $800 is too much for me at this time, but $200 then for a year (or less) later, the Water Heater will broke too so I have to replace whole thing again. PLease help me to make these choice. The brand of my Water Heater is "EnviroTemp".

If the warranty on your water heater is six years and it's eight years old now, your water heater is on borrowed time -- especially if you haven't done any maintenance (like draining it of sediment once a year). You could spend $200 to fix it now and it could break down some other way next month. Then the problem will be that you have no hot water and you won't have a lot of time to shop around.

It would not hurt to have a couple of other companies give you bids on a new water heater. You may find you can get it done for much less than $800. Or, if the price is too high to pay all at once, ask if you can pay it off over a few months.